Saskatchewan's Top 5 tech companies to keep an eye on in 2019
Katrina German, a tech consultant based in Saskatoon, compiled the list.
From Coconut calendar to Hugr, there are several tech companies making their mark here in Saskatchewan and elsewhere.
Katrina German is a technology consultant based in Saskatoon. She spoke with CBC Saskatchewan about some of the companies to keep an eye on in the new year.
1. Coconut Software
Based in Saskatoon, Coconut Software is an enterprise appointment scheduling software.
"This is a well known group who has been making waves in the Canadian tech scene," German said. "When companies like Royal Bank, Telus, Rogers are setting up appointments with you, they are using Coconut Software."
"Back in 2017 they closed a $4.2 million CAD Series A round and they have been putting that money to good use," German said. "They've got a huge team here in Saskatoon and they're also expanding to Toronto."
2. Territorial
Territorial is a tech company in Saskatoon with Daren McLean and Scott Borys. They created an app Hugr that is centred around mental wellness.
"They're helping to tackle the issue of depression, anxiety and bipolar [disorder]," German said.
The app allows people to track their feelings and symptoms of depression and anxiety, notice triggers and can contact a person's support system on bad days.
"It's been getting a lot of amazing reviews," German said. "The group just won a national philanthropy day award for Mental Health Week so that was a national award so it was very exciting."
3. SalonScale
"It's actually a hardware," German said. "This comes out a woman named Alicia Soulier and her husband Ryan."
Soulier ran a hair salon and German said Soulier noticed hair colour was one of the most expensive parts of running a salon and difficult to measure.
"When you're not measuring it you don't really know how to charge your clients accordingly or how to set your pricing. And so she's created a scale where you can actually see exactly how much hair colour that you're using," German said.
"It really has been having these rave reviews from the salons that have been using it."
4. SafetyTek
Founded by Craig Fraser and Ryan Quiring, SafetyTek is software meant to help construction sites become safer.
"Craig Fraser was in the safety area and he found he was doing more paperwork than actually making sure that things were safe," German said.
"They've created a technology to help all construction sites do better work and keep their paperwork streamlined and keep people safe."
"They've been actually growing 300% year after year," German said.
5. sMedia
"This is a group of a couple of guys Taylor Ursu, Marshal Finch and Regan Hinchcliffe," German said.
The trio were social media strategists and decided to create artificial intelligence for the auto industry to understand who was looking to buy a car and who was just browsing the website.
"They're able to provide these leads to auto car dealers so it's very useful, of course, for the auto industry," German said.
"The cool thing is this particular group was cited by Canadian Business.com as the 53rd fastest growing company in 2018."
With Files from CBC Radio's The Morning Edition